Igor Markevitch: A Chronology

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 133/134 (Sep., 1980), pp. 10-13
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/945446
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IGOR

MARKEVITCH:

Chronology

A
191 2

Born 27 July in Kiev, the son of Zoia Pokitonow and the pianist Boris Markevitch
(pupil of Pugno and d'Albert, and author of a piano treatise which Alfred Cortot
acknowledged as a major influence).

1914

The family moves to Paris.

I916

The family settles in La Tour-de-Peilz (Vevey), Switzerland, which is to remain

Markevitch's main home for the next i o years.

1921-2

Piano studies with his father (who dies in 1923): subsequently with Paul Loyonnet.
Classical studies at Vevey College.

192

Alfred Cortot hears him play his piano suite Noces. Cortot recommends the suite to
his publishers, Senart, and invites Markevitch to join his piano class in Paris.

1926

Enters the Ecole Normale de Musique, Paris, to study piano with Cortot, and
harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Nadia Boulanger.

1927

Publication of Noces.

1928

1929

Leaves Ecole Normale with diploma; November, begins Sinfonietta in F (completed

February 1929).
Is introduced to Diaghileff, who, after hearing him play his Sinfonietta, commissions
him first to write a piano concerto for performance in April, and then to collaborate
with Boris Kochno on a ballet, L' Habit dt roi. In a letter to the London Timesof
13 July, Diaghileff reviews what he calls 'a scandalous period of music . . . which
began with the cult of Gounod, Tchaikovsky, and Donizetti and ended with pastiches
of Godard and Lecocq'. Denouncing the fashion of 'cynical-sentimental simplicity', he
goes on to introduce his 'young country-man Igor Markevitcllh'in wliose nmusiche
senses 'the very birth of that generation which can protest against the Paris orgies'.
i 5 July, Markevitch plays the solo part in the premiere of his Piano Concertoat Covent
Garden, with the Covent Garden Orchestra conducted by Roger Desormiere.
28 July, accompanies Diaghileff on a visit to Baden-Baden for the world premiere of
the Hindemith-Brecht Lehrstiick,and then to Munich for The Magic Flute (conducted by
Strauss) and Tristan.
July-August, works on L'Habit du roi, which is, however, abandoned after the death of
Diaghileff on 19 August. Some of the material sketched for the ballet is incorporated
in the Cantata which he begins towards the end of the year, and for which Cocteau
provides the text.

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MARKEVITCH: A CHRONOLOGY

II

1930

4 June: Desormiere conducts the world premiere of the Cantata. 'This Cantata'
writes the composer Henri Sauguet, 'achieved an immense success . . . It bears witness
to a very rare mastery, and to a marvellous balance of intelligence and esprit'.
August-September: Markevitch writes to Willy Strecker, the eminent music publisher
and director of Schott (Mainz), offering the Sinfonietta, the Piano Concerto,and the
Cantata for publication. Strecker enthusiastically accepts all three works. With his
courageous support, Schott are to remain Markevitch's exclusive publishers until
political events supervene in 1938.
8 December: Paris premiere of ConcertoGrossois received with great enthusiasm: 'a
door suddenly opens on the future . . . Markevitch has formidable technique and a
truly unique invention' (Darius Milhaud, L'Europe, 13 December).

1931

24 April, Hans Rosbaud conducts the orchestra of Frankfurt Radio in the German
premieres of the ConcertoGrossoand the Piano Concerto(with the composer as soloist).

1932

Is December, the Paris premiere of Rebus(in a programme beginning with Schoenberg-Bach and Satie's Parade, and ending with The Rite of Spring) is a major triumph
for the composer. 'Today, when, according to the phrase of Paul Dukas, "we no
longer find our new talent in the list of the deceased but in the list of the births" we
have had many disappointments . . . So I am in no particular hurry to proclaim the
genius of even the most gifted musicians. But in the case of Markevitch, after the new
work he has just given us, doubt is no longer permissible . . . His music is not
young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when he was i o, played like a master and
not like a child prodigy. His accomplishments are amazing . . . When anyone congratulates the admirable Nadia Boulanger on having made such a splendid pupil, she
laughs and says that he knew the secrets of counterpoint before he was born. I should
add that Markevitch on every occasion pays homage to his teacher.' (Henry Prunieres,
New YorkTimes, I o January 32).

1933

March: debut as conductor, with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, in

the Dutch premiere of Rebus; the remainder of the concert is conducted by Pierre
Monteux.
7 April, Koussevitzky conducts the American premiere of Rebuswith the Boston
Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall.
26 June, Desormiere conducts the world premiere in Paris of L'Envol d'Icare; it makes
a very powerful inpression on audience and critics. 'This work . . . will probably
mark a date in the evolution of music' (Darius Milhaud, Le Rempart, 28 June 33).
'It is impossible to hear these foot-scratchings, these bird-stampings, these wingstrokes, this pigeon-house of impatient slaps, without thinking of Nietzsche's phrase:
"The ideas that change the face of the world make their entrance on doves' feet".'
(Jean Cocteau, Revuemusicalebelge 5 April 3 5).
19 July, Constant Lambert conducts Hymnesat a contemporary music concert in
London. The press is unfavourable: 'For frigid and calculated dissonances these
orchestral writings go beyond anything in the present writer's experience. One cannot
find terms to express the badness of these works' (The GlasgowHerald, 20 July 33).

1934-36

Periodic conducting studies in Switzerland with Hermann Scherchen, who becomes one
of the leading advocates of his music.

1934

4 April: at the ISCM Festival in Florence, Markevitch conducts the Italian premiere of his
Psaume, 'creating a sensation, and shocking the audience into loud shouts of protest'
(Slonimsky, Musicsince 900).

1935

20 December: substituting for Scherchen, Markevitch conducts the world premiere of

his oratorio Le Paradis perdu at a BBC invitation concert at the Queen's Hall, London.
The press is unfavourable: 'This brave new world, in which anything can be put down
on paper as though it were of portentous significance, although anything else would be
equally unpleasant and insignificant, seems to be fit only for suicides' (Eric Blom).

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TEMPO

12

1936

April, marries Kyra, the daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky, and acquires a new home in
Corsier (Switzerland).
8 May, continental premiere of Le Paradis perdu in Brussels: 'Le Paradis perdu achieved
an immense success in Brussels; however, I am not under any illusion about the significance of this success; the battle has only begun, because the stakes are large: in my
view, Paradis marks a turning point in music!'. (Boris de Schloezer, Vendredi,22
May 36.) 'A great work. A very great work, continuing the path which is lined with
such monuments of the lyric stage as Boris, Pelleas, The Rite, and Les Noces'. (Andre
Coeuroy,

Beaux-Arts, 15 May 36.)

1937

May: at a composers' congress mounted by the Florence Maggio Musicale, Markevitch

causes a stir by declaring that composers themselves are at least partly responsible for
the isolation of which they complain. June: working in London on the score of the
sinfonia concertante Le Nouvel age, commissioned by Edward James.
September, at the Venice Biennale, conducts L'Envol d'lcare ('I rejoice to hear it again
but I am nervous to conduct it for the first time . . . It is so terribly difficult !'I.M. to Alex de Graeff, i August); the occasion marks a rapprochement with
Stravinsky, who is in the audience and expresses admiration for the score.

1938

i January: Piatigorsky commissions a cello concerto.

21 January: the world premiere in Warsaw of Le Nouvel age marks a new triumph for

the composer: colleagues see it as a 'landmark' in the history of 'Polish' music. On

his way back from Poland, Markevitch visits Nijinsky for the first time, in Kreuzlingen.
In a letter to Alex de Graeff, Kyra describes the meeting as 'a marvel'.
April: Le Nouvel age is acclaimed by an audience of two thousand at the Palais des
Beaux-Arts in Brussels. 'It is often said that a gulf exists between contemporary
composers and the masses who are avid for music. For Markevitch this gulf does not
exist. He has established contact with the broad public, with the crowds; in that lies
true genius'. (Leon Kochnitzky, La Revuemusicale, May 1938).
17 June: Scherchen conducts Le Nouvel age at an ISCM Festival concert in London.
September: begins collaboration with C.F. Ramuz on La Taille de l'Homme.
i December, Markevitch writes to Alex de Graeff: 'Scherchen has returned to Paris
enchanted with his first concert . . . He tells me that Le Nouvel age aroused much
individual enthusiasm, but that the music also provoked a hostility which is only
beginning. He has shown me press reviews which, according to him, are only equalled
in their violence by those of Tannhduser.'
1938-39 In increasingly straitened circumstances owing to conditions in Europe, Markevitch
undertakes lectures, broadcasts, and two-piano recitals in Switzerland and abroad.
Between the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and Christmas of
that year, he completes Part I of La Taille de l'Homme. Further work is interrupted
by a commission from a Swiss patron.
1940

Spring: on an extended visit to Florence, composes the sinfonia concertante Lorenzoil

magnifico.
10 June, Italy declares war on the Allies. Technically stateless owing to non-fulfilment
of the two-year residence condition for Swiss citizenship, Markevitch returns to Switzerland only for short visits, and ceases to do so as soon as there is a risk of being cut
off from Italy, where Kyra has obtained a teaching post.

1941

Bernard Berenson lends Markevitch a peasant cottage on his Settignano estate near
Florence; this is to be his home for the next six years. His circle of friends now
includes Luigi Dallapiccola (who writes the introductory notes for the premiere of
Lorenzoil magnificoon 12 January) and the conductor Vittorio Gui. In October he
completes what was to be his last original composition, the Variations,Fugue, and Envoi
on a Themeof Handel.

I942

At the end of a 'a hard, a very hard, winter' (as he describes it in a letter to Alex de
Graeff of 7 April 42) he falls seriously ill. While recuperating in a clinic in Fiesole

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MARKEVITCH: A CHRONOLOGY

he senses himself to be 'dead between two lives'. A new life of conducting is already
in its formative stages, and during the coming year he is to give a number of concerts
in Florence.
1943

Recomposes Icare.
October: Germany invades Italy. Markevitch renounces his conducting commitments,
joins cause with the Italian Resistance, and becomes a member of the Committee of
Liberation (CLN).

1944

Further serious illness. While in hospital he composes a jeu d'esprit on themes of

Johann Strauss, Le Bleu Danube; Dallapiccola visits him regularly and reads him Dante.
After the liberation of Florence, Markevitch is commissioned by the British Army
authorities to reorganize the orchestra and the Maggio Fiorentino.

1946

On a return visit to Switzerland he writes a political study, Made in Italy (published in

France, in Italy, and in England by the Harvill Press).

I947

Acquires Italian citizenship, and following the dissolution of his first marriage, marries
Topazia Caetani. His international conducting career now begins; during the next
30 years he is to hold permanent conducting posts in many cities, including Stockholm, Paris (Lamoureux Orchestra), Montreal, Madrid, Monte Carlo, and Rome;
also conducting courses in Salzburg, Mexico, Moscow, Madrid, Monte Carlo, and
Weimar.

1948

Reviewing in the Journal de Genevea concert conducted by Markevitch, the eminent

Swiss critic R. Aloys Mooser writes: 'In the course of an already long life, I have
encountered only two composers of whom one could justifiably say that they possessed
equal aptitudes in the arts of composing and conducting: Gustav Mahler and Richard
Strauss. To these two exceptional names must henceforth be added that of Igor Markevitch.'

1949

Completes his realization of Bach's Musical Offering.

I954

Moves to Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. subsequently acquires a summer house in the

village of St. Cezaire, near Nice, which has latterly become his permantent home.

I 956

Birth of his son, Oleg.

1958

In a book of interviews with Claude Rostand, confirms his already-stated view that the
time is not ripe for performing his music again.

I969

During another serious illness, plans a course of lectures on Beethoven 9th Symphony
for his conducting pupils. Totalling some 6o hours, the course provides the initiative
for an encyclopedic edition of all the Beethoven symphonies which occupies much of
his time and energies during the 1970's, and is now (summer I98o) being prepared
for publication by Peters-Leipzig.

1978

January: after more than three decades, Markevitch 'returns' to his music, conducting
a concert in Brussels which includes Icare and Le Paradis perdu. 'These works have lost
nothing of their strength and interest, and we see better than before what gives them
their unity and their originality'. (Le Soir, g February 78)

1978-80

Performances in France, Spain, Germany, and Israel mark the beginnings of a

Markevitch renaissance; plans are laid for recordings and for a complete 'retrospective'
in a major European centre; completion of the first volume of Memoirs (to be published by Gallimard, October i980).

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